India, Holocaust Education and the Tropes of Jewish/Muslim Difference – Dr Yulia Egorova, University of Durham

Venue: M46, Main Building

Abstract:

The past decade witnessed a marked and disturbing rise in the popularity of the figure of Hitler in India. As Navras Aafreedi, a pioneer of Holocaust education in the subcontinent, observes, films are made in various Indian languages with protagonists having the name of Hitler, there is a growing demand for Hitler memorabilia, and Mein Kampf, which had been translated by the Nazis into all major Indian languages, is still readily available throughout the country, while Holocaust education and education in Jewish Studies, on the other hand, have been extremely limited. This paper will discuss the factors that may account for this phenomenon, focusing specifically on the relationship between Indian public understandings of Nazism and the position of the Indian Muslim community. Drawing on the work of Gil Anidjar and Aamir Mufti, I will consider how global Jewish identities and experiences of alterity intersect with the minority question(s) in India. In doing so I will discuss how beginning from the 1930s Nazi rhetoric on the subcontinent has been directed against South Asian Muslims in ways that both conflated and juxtaposed Jewish and Muslim imageries, and how trajectories of anti-Muslim violence have intersected in India with Nazi rhetoric and the lack of Holocaust education.

Speaker biography

Dr Egorova is Reader in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Durham. Her research interests include the anthropology of Jewish communities, the social aspects of science and biotechnology, and the relationship between science and religion. Dr Egorova is the Director of the Centre for the Study of Jewish Culture, Society and Politics: www.durham.ac.uk/jewishstudies

This event is part of a new series on ‘Education’ organised by EHU’s Ethnicity, Race, and Racism Seminar for 2015/2016. For further information, please go here